


Wasp

by hilaryfaye



Series: Wasp Nest [1]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen, Wasp (OFC)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-26 08:06:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/648392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hilaryfaye/pseuds/hilaryfaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One of Tooth's fairies has taken an interest in Pitch, and it doesn't seem like she'll be going away any time soon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wasp

Pitch woke aching and exhausted, laying on the cold stone floor. He didn’t know how long he had been battling his own nightmares, down in this cavern. At last they had gone, though he didn’t know how or why.

Groaning, he climbed to his feet. He felt as though he had been dragged backwards through hell, and received a club over the head to boot. Everything hurt, from his ears and teeth to the muscles of his calves. It was deep-seated pain, down to the bone, yet there was nothing for it but to get off the floor, to try to move.

He supported himself against the wall, making his way to the single, aged bed. He did not usually need to sleep, but he had taken quite a beating, and he was not good for much as he was. 

The Nightmare King fell face down into the blankets, ignoring the dust that rose up and the musty smell that permeated everything. It was a familiar scent. He groaned again, rolling onto his back. He felt as though he could sleep for a thousand years and it wouldn’t rid him of the ache in his body. 

But sleep didn’t come. He laid there, staring at the vaulted ceiling of his cavern, and wished desperately for it, but still it evaded him. He wondered if that was the Sandman’s newest trick—keeping sleep from him. If it was, it was cruel, and Pitch did not think the Guardian was capable of real cruelty. So perhaps not. Perhaps it was his own body betraying him, that he could not get rest.

After some time, Pitch felt something stirring under the collar of his robe that should not have been there. He reached for it, thinking an overly large spider had found its way into his home.

What he grasped in his palm was most definitely not a spider. With a gentle grasp Pitch extracted the small creature from his collar, and stared at it in surprise. The bright little tooth fairy looked back at him sheepishly, not even trying to escape his fingers.

“And what on earth are you doing here?” Pitch asked softly, turning his hand and uncurling his fingers to that the fairy could sit upright on his palm. She shook herself and stood, hovering just centimeters over his hand. She had something clutched in her little hands, something rather familiar to Pitch.

The tooth that Toothiana had knocked out of his face. He frowned at it, and then at the fairy. She held it out to him, looking embarrassed.

“Won’t your mistress be looking for you?” Pitch asked, wishing he wasn’t nearly immobilized by pain. He could have swatted at the little nuisance.

The fairy huffed, hugging the tooth to her chest. She was annoyed with him. 

“You don’t belong here. Shoo.”

The fairy scowled—at least as much as the little thing could—and flew off through the cavern. Pitch thought she’d gone, and was almost comfortable with the idea, when she suddenly came whizzing back, landing with a soft thump in the thick of his hair. 

Pitch gave an indignant shout and tried to grab at it, but he moved too quickly and a nasty throb rocked through his body, making him wince and drop against the pillow, wishing away the pain. “Did she send you?” he asked. “Are you here to make one last mockery of me?”

The little fairy shook her head, now perched lightly on his cheek. She stroked his cheekbone with her tiny hand, looking sad. Pitch closed his eyes, turning his face into the pillow. If he could just sleep. “Stay then, if you must, you little pest.”

The fairy made a delighted sound, and burrowed once more into the collar of his robe, just against his throat. Pitch could feel her little hands and feet pressed there, as she made herself comfortable.

Well if this wasn’t the strangest thing to happen to him in centuries he didn’t know what was.

Pitch expected it all to have been some strange dream when he next woke. He ran his fingers through his collar, and (finding nothing) assumed that it had been the workings of a pain-addled mind, and that the fairy had never been there at all.

Until he found the tooth laying on a stone outcropping. He pinched it between thumb and forefinger, holding it up in the dim light. Why would one of Toothiana’s fairies follow him here, where they had been imprisoned? Least of all to bring him back one of his own teeth, one that Toothiana had happily removed for him. 

Speaking of the little bugger, where had she gone? 

Pitch heard a soft fluttering and looked up. Flitting through the air above his head, the fairy seemed to be having great fun playing chase with one of the smaller Nightmares, tormenting it then outflying it. 

Well. The little pest seemed to be quite a bit different from her brethren. Certainly she was unafraid of him and the Nightmares. “Good morning,” he said, and the fairy dropped down to eye-level, smiling. “Are you staying then?” he asked, puzzled, though he pretended as though none of this fazed him.

The fairy looked at him curiously. May I?

He gestured vaguely in the air. “If you don’t become too much of an annoyance then I don’t care what you do.”

The fairy smiled and—surprising Pitch again—nuzzled her head against his cheek. She landed again in his hair, as if it were a nest. 

“I suppose I ought to call you something other than Pest,” Pitch said, amused. The fairy put her chin in her hands, resting her elbows on his forehead. Pitch plucked her out of his hair, and she lounged in his palm, far too much sass on that tiny face of hers. Pitch smirked at that.

“What would you liked to be called, then?” he asked, walking through his lair. He tickled under her chin, which seemed to entertain her. “Wasp, perhaps?” 

She perked up at that, nodding. Wasp. She flitted up to his shoulder, kicking back there with a smug look on her face.

“Well, Wasp,” Pitch said, smiling with amusement at his new companion, “You’re a rather unusual fairy, aren’t you?”

She made as fierce a face as she could manage, and looked offended when Pitch laughed. “Don’t be offended,” he said, catching her by the wing as she flew away to sulk. “You are a ferocious little beast, in your own way.”

That little beast bit his hand, and had the gall to look pleased with herself when he dropped her, cursing. Pitch frowned at her for a moment, then smiled. “We might get along better than I thought.”

Wasp smiled, and went to drape herself around the shell of his ear, as if he were an enormous transport for her. Pitch chuckled. “Yes, Wasp, we might get along fantastically.”


End file.
